The Journal of Organic Chemistry
Article
NMR spectra were run on instruments operating at 300, 400, or 500
MHz. HPLC measurements were made with dual wavelength
absorbance detection. UV−vis spectra and kinetic measurements
were run on a spectrophotometer equipped with an automatic cell
changer which was thermostated at 25 ± 0.1 °C. Column
chromatography was performed on Merck-Kieselgel type 60 9250−
400 mesh silica. Preparative TLC was carried out on glass plates
coated with Merck-KieselgelPF254/366 silica (21 g in 60 mL of water).
Product Analyses. Product analyses were carried out for each of
the 3-, 6-, and 7-substituted naphthalene-cis-1,2-dihydrodiols for which
a rate constant for acid-catalyzed dehydration was determined. These
involved identification of 1- and 2-naphthol products from reaction of
the 2- and 1-hydroxyl groups of the dihydrodiols and determination of
their ratio of concentrations (cf. Scheme 3). As a general procedure,
7−10 mg of reactant in acetonitrile was treated with dilute perchloric
acid for at least seven half-lives of reaction. The reaction mixture was
neutralized with saturated sodium bicarbonate followed by extraction
with ethyl acetate and evaporation of the solvent under reduced
interaction for +M substituents. In practice, the resonance is
even less favorable than for the benzene-cis-1,2-dihydrodiols.
Moreover, if the bonds separating substituent and reaction site
for 3- and 7-substituents are compared (Chart 1, 12 and 13), it
is hard to see why there should not be a similar impairment of
resonance in the case of +M substituents at the 7-position as at
the 3-position.
These considerations suggest that the reduction in resonance
may stem less from the nonplanarity and/or imbalance of
resonance and inductive effects in the transition state than
steric hindrance, preventing the methoxy substituent itself
achieving the planarity necessary for full expression of its
resonance. This is most obviously due to the adjacent hydroxyl
group. It is true that there is little evidence of steric hindrance
to electrophilic aromatic substitution at an ortho position, which
might have been considered a closely related reaction.
However, both reactants and transition states for these
reactions differ, and only the intermediates are strictly
comparable in structure. For the dihydrodiols the steric
influence of the adjacent hydroxyl on conjugation of a
substituent is likely to be enhanced by a buttressing effect
from the reacting hydroxyl group, an effect which is not present
in the transition state for the electrophilic aromatic substitution
reaction.
1
pressure; a H NMR spectrum of the mixture was recorded.
In general, the NMR spectrum revealed two products with two sets
of peaks in the 6.5−8.5 ppm region corresponding to the 1- and 2-
naphthols. The ratio of products was determined from integration of
non-overlapping peaks. The major product was isolated by preparative
TLC, and the structure was assigned by comparison of the spectrum
with an authentic sample or spectrum reported in the literature. The
minor product was presumed to have the complementary structure.
In the case of bromo- and iodonaphthol samples spectra were not
available, and the mixtures of phenolic products were converted to
a mixture of the unsubstituted 1- and 2-naphthols by reductive
hydrogenation. The ratio of naphthol concentrations was determined
by HPLC based on comparison with authentic samples.
The detailed procedure for hydrogenation and analysis of the iodo-
and bromonaphthol products was as follows. The unpurified mixture
of products from the dehydration reaction was dissolved in 5 mL of
methanol and triethylamine (0.05 mL). Pd/C (10 mg) was added
followed by stirring for 10 h under a H2 atmosphere. The solution was
filtered through Celite, and the filtrate was concentrated under
vacuum. The products were analyzed by reverse phase HPLC on a
C18 column with water and acetonitrile as eluants and a flow rate of
1 mL/min.
A caveat for these comparisons is that the precision with which
r values may be determined is quite sensitive to experimental or
“chemical” dispersion within a group of measurements.
Optimization of values involves complementary changes in r
and ρ, so that correlation coefficients are a relatively insensitive
function of one parameter when the other can vary. Chart 2
Chart 2
The spectrophotometric method for kinetic measurements is
outlined in the Results section and Supporting Information and is
described in more detail in previous publications.16 The measured
first-order rate constants are listed in the Supporting Information
(Table S3).
illustrates variation of these parameters between limiting and
optimum combinations of σ0 and σ+ based on 11 substituents
for the previously studied 3-substituted benzene cis-dihydrodiols.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the present results for
naphthalene-cis-1,2-dihydrodiols reinforce the conclusion that
resonance between substituent and reaction site is impaired in
the dehydration of 3-substituted arene-1,2-dihydrodiols. The
proposal that the lack of resonance is mainly steric in origin
remains a tentative one, but it is difficult to envisage an
alternative explanation. Importantly, it seems safe to rule out
any explanation in terms of stabilization of the positive charge
of the intermediate through hyperconjugation enhanced by the
aromatic character of the benzenium (4) or naphthalenium
(10) ion as reactive intermediates. Apart from their chemical
interest, the results are significant in allowing a better
understanding of factors influencing the stabilities under
physiological conditions of an important class of aromatic
metabolites.9
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
■
S
* Supporting Information
Details of product analyses, rate constants, and m* values,
including summary Tables S1−S3: graphical representations of
free energy relationships, Figures S1 and S2. This material is
AUTHOR INFORMATION
■
Corresponding Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
■
This work was supported by the Science Foundation Ireland
Grant 04/IN3/B581.
EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
■
Instrumentation and Chromatography. All the substituted
naphthalene-cis-1,2-dihydrodiols 3, 6, and 7 were obtained as
enantiopure metabolites of 2-substituted naphthalene substrates
using whole cells of Pseudomonas putida UV4.
REFERENCES
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(1) Kudavalli, J. S.; Boyd, D. R.; Coyne, D.; Keeffe, J. R.; Lawlor, D.
A.; MacCormac, A. C.; More O’Ferrall, R. A.; Rao, S. N.; Sharma,
N. D. Org. Lett. 2010, 12, 5550−5553.
They were structurally and stereochemically characterized as
described in an earlier paper.8 For the work of the current paper
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/jo201591r|J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 9338−9343